Three Regions

In Switzerland, one can distinguish among three different regions: cities, midlands and the Alps. SWEET EDGE proposes that these three regions require different designs and operation of decentralized renewable systems. In addition to technological aspect, also the ways to promote these systems need to be developed individually, depending on the unique spatio-temporal potentials of renewable energy and the unique socio-economic, political and cultural conditions.

Developing and demonstrating typical designs and markets of local renewable energy systems lays the foundation for deploying them at a large scale in the Swiss cities, midlands, and the Alps.

The figure shows the key differences in the orders of magnitude between sustainable technical renewable energy potentials and annual demands in the three regions cities, midlands and the Alps.

The annual demands are estimated for the year 2035 for electricity, for the year 2019 for heating and cooling, and assumed using current national share for transport. The existing estimates of sustainable technical potential for rooftop solar energy, wind power, biomass, and hydropower have been adapted from current literature. Further research indicates that some of these potentials, especially in the Alps, are likely underestimated.